“I’m not going to speak for John McCain — he has a brain tumor right now, that vote occurred at 1:30 in the morning, some of that might have factored in,” Johnson told the radio show “Chicago’s Morning Answer.”

The radio host pressed Johnson on whether he really felt McCain’s brain tumor impacted his judgment.

“Again, I don’t know exactly — we really thought — and again I don’t want to speak for any senator,” the Wisconsin Republican said. “I really thought John was going to vote yes to send that to conference at 10:30 at night. By about 1, 1:30, he voted no. So you have to talk to John in terms of what was on his mind.”

Likely, what was on his mind was he’d just been told he had an aggressive form of brain cancer, and in the midst of that, he flew back to Washington to place his vote, rather than taking the time to really absorb the news.

He should have taken some time off, but I imagine there’s a certain effort to keep moving, in spite of the inevitable. He may be in the denial phase.

McCain said last week he was opposed to the process that led up to the vote on the “skinny repeal” bill, though some senators like Johnson said they backed the proposal because it would’ve led them to conference with the House.

“We did get a call from [House Speaker] Paul [Ryan] and he assured us that skinny repeal was not going to pass the House. It would have to go to conference,” Johnson said Wednesday.

And there will be another effort to pass a pared down version of an awful piece of legislation. In the meantime, we’ll wait for Johnson’s mea culpa for saying something that will likely get him blasted on social media and beyond.